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Featuring the images of Christina McWilliams

Mackenzie’s Hope; Purse Sale!

This is a story about someone making a difference. It’s about a community pulling together to help a family. It’s about the basic goodness of people.

Most of us, including myself, look at other people’s misfortunes and feel powerless to do anything. We may feel sad and we probably feel empathy and we might ask “what can I do to help?” The difference in this story is that one very special person went ahead and did something. She didn’t wait to be asked.

This story started when a 4-year old North Kildonan girl was diagnosed with a rare disease called Late Infantile Batten’s Disease. It’s an illness that has no cure.

My Facebook friend and former work colleague, Liz Loewen, knew of this family’s misfortune and wanted to do something to help.

Liz had just had a garage sale and after the sale was over, she realized that she had forgotten to include a big bag of purses in her sale. Her original idea was to sell the purses and donate the money to Mackenzie’s family. Her original plan grew exponentially!

I had left some purses on Liz’s doorstep a few days ago and went to the sale right at 4:00 pm today. I expected to see a couple of hundred purses. I couldn’t believe what I saw when I got there. I have no idea how many purses Liz and her friends collected, but it looked like a couple of thousand. My first thought was OMG: I need to get some pictures of this! After buying some purses I went back home and grabbed my camera and went back.

This is what I saw:

Liz’s goal had been to raise $500. In fact, Liz and her friends raised in the neighbourhood of $7000.oo!

Not only did they raise that much money, but a few people found money in a purse that they bought (one purse had a significant amount of money!) and the people brought the money back!

It’s wonderful what we can do if we only try! It’s wonderful how a community came together to help this family.